Studio

X-Men: The Legend of Wolverine

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 24th, 2003

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Synopsis

Four episodes (two of which are a two-part story) make up this offering, which, what withMagneto and the X-Men joining forces and Wolverine learning about his past, will bear someresemblance, presumably, to some of the action in the new movie. This is just Saturday morningcartoon fare, however, no more, no less. So be sure you like the TV show before you pick up theDVD.

Audio

Not too much to report on the audio. The 2.0 mix is certainly clear enough…
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Malevolent

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 24th, 2003

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Malevolent is a direct to video release staring Lou Diamond-Phillips. The cast is mostly made up of film and television character actors. While not exceptional, this is not a bad film either. It’s one of those “innocent guy framed for murder” films with enough plot holes to make Swiss cheese. If you’re willing to ignore the incredible coincidences needed to pull off the crime, an ending that falls a little flat, and some rather obvious continuity flaws, this one is worth at least a look.

Biggie & Tupac

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 24th, 2003

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Synopsis

Nick Broomfield, never one to shy away from hard and prickly topics, here tackles theshooting deaths of Biggie Smalls (the Notorious B.I.G.) and Tupac Shakur. The trail opens up allsorts dangerous vistas, including crooked cops moonlighting as security for Death Row Records.Most intriguing, and more than a little alarming.

Audio

The sound quality is all over the map, but that’s to be expected: this is a documentary, folks,and you don’t expect the ev…
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8 Mile

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 24th, 2003

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In this story, very loosely based on his own life, Eminem makes his acting debut. This is the story of Jimmy Smith Jr. a white boy born on the wrong side of Detroit’s 8 Mile divide. With an alcoholic white trash mother played by Kim Basinger, a dead end job and a trailer park for a home he does not have much going for him. His dreams fed by Detroit’s vibrant underground rap battle scene Jimmy tries to find himself and his voice in the world. This is a well written story about courage and not allowing one’s self to become a product of your environment.
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Black Swan

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 22nd, 2003

Synopsis

Hopeville isn’t terribly well named. The population is dwindling, and those who remainappear to have precious little hope. Chief among them is Helen (Melanie Doane), who woulddo anything to leave town. One can hardly blame her, given that her boyfriend is disagreeableloser Carl (Michael Riley), who, it seems, might well be responsible for the murder of the localgrocer. The film is loaded with quirky characters, but none of them are especially likeable, andthe plot meanders …
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Drug Wars: The Camarena Story

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 22nd, 2003

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Synopsis

Undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena (Steven Bauer) is kidnapped and killed inMexico. Drug lord Benicio Del Toro is responsible, but investigators Treat Williams and CraigT. Nelson discover the corruption is more widespread than they thought. The case boasts thatthis if “from the producers of The Insider, Ali and Black Hawk Down,” but a more accuratesense of this effort would be given had the tag read “from the director of Poltergeist III.” Prettystandard TV fare, and the …
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Hysterical Blindness

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 21st, 2003

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Synopsis

Uma Thurman plays Debby, a young woman so wound up that she has experiencedpsychosomatic blindness. She and her best friend Beth (Juliette Lewis) hit the bars looking forlove. If ever a character radiated desperation, it’s Debby. As Thurman plays her, she’s toxicallyradioactive, one more disappointment from snapping completely. Both the leads are very good,but this is the kind of role that Lewis has more than mastered in the past, whereas Thurman isone doing the real stretc…
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Walking with Cavemen

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 21st, 2003

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Synopsis

BBC’s documentary moves through four main phases, beginning with a groupAstralopithicus afarensis, and then stopping at other important milestones in our evolution,taking time to examine the dead ends (such as the Neanderthals) as well. The first half is plaguedby an excessively digressive narrative and massive overuse of time lapse photography. Theapemen are wonderfully rendered by real actors in make-up, but their interaction with CGI beastsproduces effects that aren’t qu…
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Psych-Out / The Trip

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 21st, 2003

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Synopsis

Two classics from American International are what we have here, with lots of familiar namesinvovled. Psych-Out stars Susan Strasberg, Jack Nicholson, Dean Stockwell and Bruce Dern.The Trip, scripted by Nicholson, stars Strasberg, Dern, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, and isdirected by Roger Corman. You can’t do much better for pedigree. The plots of both arerudimentary (at best). In Psych-Out, Strasberg (whose character is deaf for some reason),searches for her brother (Dern…
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Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 20th, 2003

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Long before computers began to provide movie-goers with vivid representations of dinosaurs and alien invasions, Willis O’Brien and a young protégé, Ray Harryhausen, were thrilling audiences with stop motion. O’Brien’s masterpiece, of course, was King Kong. Ray Harryhausen developed that painstaking process for films like Earth vs. The Flying Saucers. Jaded audiences of today might find it hard to imagine that the f/x on this film held the fans spellbound in their theatre seats. Now, with digitally remastered prints and the new alchemy of DVD, you can treat yourself to an early craft that has influenced the great pioneers of today’s filmmaking.

Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 19th, 2003

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Based one the wildly successful Harry Potter series of novels, this film is based on book two of the series. As sophomore jinx’s go this one could have been far worse, the problem here is we no longer have the wonder of a new world to explore but, we still have characters that are not fully fleshed out yet either. The plot is somewhat predictable in that we have the same villain as the previous novel, albeit in a different form. Harry Potter and the usual cast of characters return for another year of adventure at Hog…
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American Family – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 19th, 2003

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Synopsis

The protagonists are the members of the Gonzales family, who live in East LA. The serieschronicles their many ups and downs, some comical — struggles between the father and hisfirebrand activist daughter, the drama queen aunt confronted by her daughter’s desire to be asingle mother — and other are less so, as in the recently paroled son who finds the difficulties ofparenting compounded by legal entanglements. The makers of the series are proud that this is thefirst of its…
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Darkness Falls

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 17th, 2003

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Synopsis

A woman, wrongly accused of killing children, is hanged and curses the town of DarknessFalls. Now she is the Tooth Fairy, vulnerable to light, but otherwise deadly. If you peak whenshe comes for your tooth, you’re toast. In what is the scariest scene of the film, young Kyle seesher and escapes with his life (though his mother doesn’t). Twelve years later, the young brotherof Kyle’s old crush Caitlin is similarly haunted. Kyle is drawn back to Darkness Falls, there toconfron…
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Borderline

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 17th, 2003

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Synopsis

Gina Gershon is a prison psychiatrist. She is in the middle of a custody battle with her ex-husband, and she loses the case. The night her kids are taken from her, however, someone killsthe ex and his new wife. Gershon’s recently released patients are investigated by her newboyfriend, cop Michael Biehn. Looks like Sean Patrick Flanery is the one obsessively in lovewith Gershon, and will stop at nothing to bring them together. Competently staged, but no more.Nothing new here…
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Eye of God

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 17th, 2003

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Synopsis

The film unfolds in a series of interlocking scenes, all occurring at different times. The talebeing told concerns the arrival in a small Oklahoma town of an ex-con (Kevin Anderson), whodeveloped a prison-correspondence romance with shy Martha Plimpton. In the present, SheriffHal Holbrook is investigating a murder, and the flashbacks to Anderson and Plimpton, as wellas another series of flashbacks involving a quiet, somewhat disturbed teenager (Nick Stahl),show us what led …
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Walk, Don’t Run

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 15th, 2003

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Synopsis

Cary Grant plays Sir William Rutland, British industrialist. He has arrived in Tokyo two daysearlier than his hotel reservation, and what with the Olympics going on, there isn’t a room to behad. He fast-talks his way into sharing the apartment of Samantha Eggar, a young woman withobsessive clock-watching habits. She isn’t thrilled to be sharing her apartment with a man, and iseven less thrilled when Grant brings home prickly architect/Olympic athlete Jim Hutton. Eggar iseng…
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Swimmer, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 14th, 2003

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Synopsis

Burt Lancaster, a member of the New England aristocracy, wanders out of the forest andleaps into some friends’ swimming pool. After much overly hearty banter, he realizes that thereis an unbroken link of swimming pools between here and his home. He sets off, and at each pool,there is a revelatory encounter of some sort. We gradually find out more and more about him, andit soon becomes clear that all is not sweetness and light in his world. The film is extremelystylized, and…
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X-Files – The Complete Seventh Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 14th, 2003

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The X-files was one of the best written and directed shows on television, this unfortunately is the last year that the show held onto it‘s audience and originality. We start the season off with the two part season opener “The Sixth Extinction” and “The Sixth Extinction II” with Scully in Africa looking for a cure for Mulder’s mental state. In the middle we have the strangely sublime “X-cops” that finds Mulder and Scully on patrol with the Cops TV crew. We also find the typical mix of X-files weird and wonderfulness i…
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Dream with the Fishes

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 13th, 2003

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Synopsis

David Arquette, terminal loser, utterly verklempt, and unable to get over the death of hiswife, decides to jump off a bridge. He is talked down by selfish sleaze Brad Hunt, who convinceshim to take sleeping pills instead. The pills turn out to be vitamins. Hunt, however, actually isdying, and has only a few weeks to live. He strikes a deal with Arquette. If Arquette will bankrollHunt’s last spree, indulging in all his fantasies (nude bowling, etc.), he will kill Arquette at t…
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Secretary

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 12th, 2003

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Synopsis

Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a young woman utterly lacking in self-confidence, andgiven to deliberately cutting herself. She gets her first job as secretary to E. Edward Grey (JamesSpader), as tightly wound and ferociously self-isolated and individual as you could imagine.What happens when the sadist meets the masochist? Sparks fly. Low key and sharply sly, thiswinning film shows (along with Amelie and Kissing Jessica Stein) that there is life in theromantic comedy g…
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Love is a Many-Splendored Thing

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 12th, 2003

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Synopsis

The year is 1949, and mainland China is falling to the Communists. Eruasian doctor HanSuyin (Jennifer Jones, and the casting should be a bit of a clue as to what you’re in for) has asuccessful professional life in Hong Kong, but her personal life has been nonexistent since thedeath of her husband. Then reporter Mark Elliot (William Holden) waltzes into her life, refusingto take no for an answer. Of course, their love is beset by all sorts of obstacles, be it racialsuspicio…
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Red Dragon

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 10th, 2003

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Red Dragon is not only the prequel to The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, but it is also a remake of a film called Manhunter. The story fits nicely into the Hannibal Lector trilogy, and the story holds true to Manhunter.

Synopsis

After a brush with death and Hannibal Lecter, FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton) is called back into service to capture an elusive new killer “The Tooth Fairy”. Forced to face his fears and Doctor Lecter once again Will starts to get pulled into the …
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Disney’s Sing Along Songs – The Lion King Circle of Life

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 8th, 2003

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Synopsis

Nothing really to summarize here: 13 clips of musical numbers from everything from TheLion King to Pinocchio to Aladdin. Captions encourage viewers to sing along. There are severalnew songs from recent direct-to-video movies too.

Audio

This isn’t a sound effects disc, so what is of interest is the music, and the 5.1 mix is verysolid: distortion free but not too deafening.

Video

Strong and sharp, with the colours generally vi…
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Best of the Power Rangers – The Ultimate Rangers

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 8th, 2003

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Synopsis

Five Power Rangers adventures, three of which are two-parters, add up to almost three hours-worth of material. The cheerful super-powered teens go up against the regular batch of rubber-suited bad guys. If you want your kids to develop an early appreciation of camp, this is just theticket. If you’re not already familiar with the basic premise of the series, the plot lines could be alittle confusing.

Audio

Ouch. The 2.0 surround is a very harsh mix. …
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Disney’s Sing Along Songs – Sing a Song With Pooh Bear and Piglet Too

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 8th, 2003

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Synopsis

A synopsis is beside the point here. The main feature is song clips from various Winnie ThePooh cartoons with animated captions encouraging the kids to sing along. I do wonder about theaudience for such bits as the Tigger song: this piece moves so fast that you need to be a speedreader to keep up, and so probably too old for the DVD.

Audio

No sound effects to speak of, naturally, since music is the whole point of the DVD. Themusic sounds fine. It is…
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